Because of You
by Cherry8914
Summary: Songfic to Because of You by Kelly Clarkson,full sumarry inside. The war continued even after our favorite group graduated. For a few years the light and dark side fought long and hard, each side trying to be better than the other. Then...just as our favo


Disclaimer: The song is Because of You by Kelly Clarkson and all the Harry Potter things belong to J.K. Rolwing, and Dawn belongs to my good friend Peach...hehe...while Charisma Lupin belongs to me. Yay I own something! -dances around and gives self a cookie. While munching happily sayis- On with the story...umm...good chocolate cookie...

Summary: The war continued even after our favorite group graduated. For a few years the light and dark side fought long and hard, each side trying to be better than the other. Then...just as our favorite group all turn around twenty...it ends...but there is a price to pay...both sides lost a terrible amount of people...who went away from the light side that is making someone so upset?

**Because of You**

The rain poured down from the dark grey sky, mudd splattering here and there every time even the smallest rain drop made it's way to the ground. People hurried by, hands over their heads in hope that it would some how help them not to get soaked. Some people began putting their umbrellas up to keep themselves dry as they rushed to their cars to get away and home, safe from the storm everyone knew was comming. That is...everyone but one woman. Slowly she walked on the sidewalk, her long blonde hair clinging to her pale face...rain dripping into her light blue eyes that once had been full of happiness, but now held only emptiness. The war had changed everyone and everything, even the muggles realized that something had happened...something bad that had turned out mostly for the good. The wind began to howl, but the woman kept on walking, not caring that she was already soaked clean to the bone, not caring that her teeth were now chattering or that her body was shivering so much.

Nothing mattered now...nothing...and nothing would ever matter again. The street was empty, everyone safe and out of the rain and every now and then a car would drive by carefully, splashing mudd onto the sidewalk barely missing the woman's feet. 'Why?' She wondered, turning to corner to began walking to her home...the empty apartment that now had made her claustrophobic...she hated it, but it still reminded her of him..and that was the reason she was still there. 'Why did you leave me here! Why!' She wanted to scream into the nothingness around her. 'Alone in this world that means nothing...without you..it's nothing.' The past few weeks had been getting to her. Sitting alone in that apartment, thinking about the good and even the bad times in the past. She knew that he had made a lot of mistakes...and there were a couple of them that she hated him for. He could have told her what was going on. What the plan was to kill Voldemort...but no. He and her best friend had to go off and play heros like normal. Would the two of them ever ask for help? It was because of these mistakes her heart was aching so much...it felt as though a part of her was missing. He had went so slowly...so hard...it had killed a part of everyone watching him go.

_I will not make the same mistakes that you did  
I will not let myself  
Cause my heart so much misery  
I will not break the way you did,  
You fell so hard  
I've learned the hard way  
To never let it get that far_

The honking of a car horn brought the woman out of her thoughts of the past. Turning her head slightly to the side, her blonde hair falling out of her face, she saw a blue car pulling up next to the curb on the side of the road where she was. The peson driving rolled the window down, reveiling a head full of jet black messy hair. Even after all these years Harry Potter had never out grown his hair, it still refussed to lay flat.

"Charisma! I've been looking everywhere for you. Hermione called your flat and no one answered, then she called a few more times...you never answered so she flooed over...and you weren't there. Didn't we tell you to tell us when you were going out?" The man asked her, giving her a small smile of relief that he had found her.

"I'm sorry Har." Charisma whispered. "I need out...out of that...t-that place." A stray tear drop fell from her eye and made a path down her cheek. Quickly she wipped it away, crying made her weak.

Harry opened his door, stepping onto the sidewalk, not caring that he was getting wet from the rain that began falling down even harder. "Chrissy..come on. Let me take you back home. And...if not there...then at least back to my Manor to get out of this weather...you're going to ketch a cold and you know you ketch those easily." He held out his hand, hoping to gain her trust that he was worried about her. "Come on Chrissy...trust me like you once did. I'm sorry for what I did to you...not telling you that we were going up against Voldemort alone...but it was the best plan we had. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish it was me that had been in his place."

Ever since the final battle Charisma had not trusted anyone, hiding in herself, taking comforting in herself and no one else. Everyone was worried, Hermione and Ronald Weasley, along with the rest of the Weasley's, Ginny Longbottom, Remus Lupin; Charisma's father, Sirius and Fera Black and of course Dawn Potter; Charisma's sister. They had never seen her without a smile on her lips, her eyes full of happiness..until that battle. She never smiled anymore...her eyes were blank...nothing but emptiness in them now.

Charisma looked at Harry's hand, wanting to trust him..knowing he loved her like she was his own sister. But something told her not to trust anyone anymore...not even herself. Something in the back of her mind told her to think every single thing through and play it safe.

_Because of you  
I never stray too far from the sidewalk  
Because of you  
I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt  
Because of you  
I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me  
Because of you  
I am afraid_

Finally she took his hand and followed him as he lead her to the car, helping her into the front seat and to buckle herself in before going around and climbing in himself. With a heavy sigh Harry rolled his window back up, took the car of out park and began driving. "Where do you want to go?"

"Home." Was the only thing she whispered, and he barely heard that she spoke so softly.

Harry did as she whispered and he drove her home in silence, glancing at her every now and then. Finally he pulled up infront of a large building filled with muggle apartments, it looked nice, safe, and cozy...it's why everyone loved living there. The neghibor good was nice, the children friendly and most of them polite, and no one ever asked a lot of questions when mysterious people showed up at apartment 215. Pulling up at the front door Harry put the car into park and turned in his seat to look at the woman he had thought of as his sister since their third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"Call me or floo over if you need me. Dawn's going crazy not knowing how you are."

Charisma forced a smile onto her pale pink lips before nodding, "I will...don't worry about me Harry." She said, a little louder than the last time she spoke. Then, without another word she opened the car door, got out, shut the door and walked into the building without looking back. On her way up the couple flights of stairs to get to her apartment she ran into one of her neghibors. Forcing the smile back onto her lips she began talking as they walked up the stairs together. She hoped the laugh she forced out of her did not sound as fake to Nate, her neghibor, as it did to herself. Once they came to the top of the last flight of stairs and had stopped in the hallway they said their goodbyes, wishing each other to have a good week and so on before unlocking their doors and going inside.

Dropping her keys and purse onto the small table that sat only a few inches from the door before shrugging out of her soaking wet grey coat and haning it up on the coat rack that stood there. Tears came to her eyes as she saw his black cloak still hanging there, but she held them back. Tears had been a weakness in his eyes, of course he always let her cry whenever she needed to let everything out, he had been there to hold her...and now...now he was gone. _  
_  
I lose my way  
And it's not too long before you point it out  
I cannot cry  
Because you know that's weakness in your eyes  
I'm forced to fake  
A smile, a laugh everyday of my life  
My heart can't possibly break  
When it wasn't even whole to start with

Walking into the bedroom that was now hers and hers alone she opened the door, flipping her black healed boots off once she reached the bed before pulling off her red turtleneck and jeans. Grabbing the black bathrobe that had belonged to him she went to the bathroom, taking a hot shower to help her get through the rest of the day that was slowly passing. After the shower she stood infront of the large bathroom mirror, wipping it with the maroon hand towl that hung on a wodden ring next to the sink to get the foginess off. The black bathrobe still smelled like him, she was slowly starting to forget what he smelled like, and that scared her. Walking out of the bathroom her eyes were drawn to the picutre sitting next to her bed on the bedside table. The picture was a wizarding one. It showed Charisma in the arms of a certain blonde man that had been a Slytherin back at Hogwarts. The two where in a muggle park just south of the apartment building.

That's right, the man that had died and that was causing Charisma so much pain, was the one and only Draco Malfoy. He had befriended Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dawn and Charisma before Hogwarts ended, being disowned and almost killed by his own father. During the war he fought on the light side, helping Harry every chance he got to make up for the time he had been terrible to everyone. Draco had asked Charisma to marry him only a year after Hogwarts and she had said yes, the two had been married only four months later...only close friends and family comming to the wedding.

_Because of you  
I never stray too far from the sidewalk  
Because of you  
I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt  
Because of you  
I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me  
Because of you  
I am afraid_

Harry and Draco had came up with a plan to kill Voldemort once and for all...Harry took on Voldemort with a new spell he and Draco had found after months of research...while Draco took on his father, who had still been Voldemort's right hand man. Harry had barely beaten the Dark Lord...they had almost lost him. And Draco...Draco had killed his father...but not before his father cast a powerful curse on his son. They had rushed both men to Saint Mungo's so that they might live...and only Harry had made it out. Every single minute of every single day Charisma Malfoy could have been found sitting right next to the hospital bed that held her husband, his hand being held tighlty in her own hands. Every night Draco cried in his sleep, from pain...hardly ever waking up from the nightmare his mind was putting him through. It broke Charisma's heart to watch him in so much pain...and she knew she had to be the strong for him. When he was awake, his mind still torchured him, never leaving him alone for a moment. He leaned on Charisma, crying as she held him...forgetting all about it being a weakness, he couldn not help it anymore...it was all too much.

Then...during the middle of a storm late one night...he could not longer handle the pain and suffering. He died there...just momnets after he had woken up and taken Charisam into his weak arms, holding her as tightly as he could. He had whispered, "I love you forever..." and that had been it...he screamed once more before nothing. No sound, no breath came from him...March 15, 2001 at 2:05 in the morning the wizarding world lost Draco Malfoy. His friends morned his death, crying at his funeral...but Charisma never cried...not like she needed to. But this night...something inside of her was released right after she had changed into a pair of blue and green plaid pajama's and a long sleeved blue shirt, she had just fallen onto her bed when she could no longer hold it all inside. The world around her blurred as tears came to her eyes, and this time...this time she let them fall. It was what she needed. She lay there on her bed, her head barried in Draco's pillow as her small body shook from the sobs that came along with the tears. Curling up into a tiny ball she cried herself to sleep, remembering all the pain Draco had went through, cursing him for leaning on her...he knew she was weak. She had let him down, and now here she was crying all alone in the middle of the night. _  
_  
_I watched you die  
I heard you cry every night in your sleep  
I was so young  
You should have known better than to lean on me  
You never thought of anyone else  
You just saw your pain  
And now I cry in the middle of the night  
For the same damn thing_

After the night she felt better than she had in a long time. She would no longer be the same girl that everyone had known back at Hogwarts...but now small true smile could be found on her lips every now and then, though her eyes held emptiness in them. She still blaimed herself for his death, and always would. She stayed away from the Wizarding World as much as she could, quiting from her job as an Auror and working in a muggle coffee shop..the same one her mother Claire had worked at before she died. Every day she made it through it, seeming fine during the day around everyone...but at home late at night she still cried herself to sleep. Trying to forgetting everything...but never really truly wanting to forget. Men tried to get her number, tried to get close to her...but she would just shake her head, smile sadly and walk away, never letting anyone close to her...she no longer knew how to let someone in...ashamed of her life and what it had become.

_Because of you  
I never stray too far from the sidewalk  
Because of you  
I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt  
Because of you  
I try my hardest just to forget everything  
Because of you  
I don't know how to let anyone else in  
Because of you  
I'm ashamed of my life because it's empty  
Because of you  
I am afraid_

Becuase of Draco she would never love anyone else the way she loved him. Because of Draco she would never be the same. Because of him...her life had been perfect for a short while...because of him.

_Because of you  
Because of you_


End file.
